


make a noise with your toys (and ignore the killjoys)

by TheJGatsby



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fic Exchange, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5434976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJGatsby/pseuds/TheJGatsby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy needs backup for his first Christmas at Octavia and Lincoln's</p><p>(Written for Bellarke Winter Fic Exchange 2015)</p>
            </blockquote>





	make a noise with your toys (and ignore the killjoys)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacecleavage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacecleavage/gifts).



> So I kind of took all three of my bellarke winter fic exchange and put them together into a Great Big Christmas at Linctavia’s Extravaganza. Because reasons. I love Christmas. Ho ho ho.
> 
> Additional fun fact: I googled it and Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion (86%) in the Philippines, so I’ve decided that Bellamy’s grandparents took him and Octavia to mass every Sunday. Inflicting my own childhood suffering on my faves is my hobby.
> 
> Disclaimer: my family is tiny and awful so I have NO idea what actually happens at big family gatherings so any mistakes are completely on me
> 
> Title from It’s Cliched to be Cynical at Christmas by Half Man Half Biscuit
> 
> Prompts
> 
> 1\. our landlord really went all out with the mistletoe, huh?
> 
> 2\. my sister told me to buy this crappy toy for my niece and you work here please help me find it, it's black friday and i'm afraid
> 
> 3\. you're kind of a scrooge and it's up to me to show you the true meaning of holiday spirit hallmark movie style
> 
> Many thanks to [Lana](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com/) for her beta magic!

 

“Do you celebrate anything this time of year?” Bellamy asks Clarke one day, wandering into her classroom during lunch to find her scowling at one of her students’ paintings. She’s never talked about being religious or anything, so he doesn’t want to assume, but he’s known her for four years and she always seems to get ill-humored around winter break, so he has to ask.

“What?” she says, looking up at him. “You mean like Christmas?”

“Yeah, or like Hanukkah or Yule or whatever. Christmas isn’t the only holiday, you know, you gotta be more inclusive,” he says wryly, leaning against her doorframe and crossing his arms.

She rolls her eyes at him, then shrugs, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear where it’d fallen out of her hasty pencil-bun. “We celebrated Christmas when I was a kid, but it doesn’t… I don’t really like Christmas, so I just don’t anymore.”

“You _don’t like Christmas_?” he asks, jaw dropping. He would understand and support it if she was of another faith and the whole phenomenon of erasing literally every other holiday at the time except Christmas got on her nerves, but to just not enjoy Christmas? It’s unfathomable to Bellamy, the poster child of holiday cheer.

“No,” she replies shortly, scowling down at the painting and scrawling something on a grade sheet, “I don’t.”

Bellamy sighs and scuffs his foot against the ground. “Well, can you pretend to like it? For like five days tops?” he asks in the nicest voice he can muster, moving over towards her desk and sitting backwards in a paint-stained chair, because he still thinks sitting in chairs backwards is cool, much to his (legitimately cool) sister’s chagrin.

Clarke slides her eyes over to him warily. “What do you need?”

He takes a deep breath and launches into the story. “So my sister got married this year and they’ve got a house so they invited the families out for Christmas but the problem is that O’s family consists of me, and her husband’s family consists of like eight million really nice and mildly overbearing people, and I don’t know if I can survive that alone, so I need backup, so will you please spend Christmas at my sister’s with me so I don’t have to drown in the Woods clan all by my poor sad lonesome?”

Clarke narrows her eyes at him, calculating, the intended coldness of her look ruined a little bit by a smudge of bright blue paint across her cheekbone. They’ve been friends for years, after a very rocky, belligerent start resolved by getting drunk and apologizing, and although she doesn’t know if they’re ‘family event’ type of friends, it’s not as if she’s doing anything else, he looks a little desperate, and the only thing that puts her in a worse humor than December in general is spending the holidays alone. So she shrugs amicably and says, “Sure, why not, I’m not doing anything.”

His face breaks into a wide grin and he says, “You won’t regret it.” As he leaves she thinks she hears him mutter, “I’m gonna make you love Christmas if it’s the last thing I do, princess.”

She rolls her eyes fondly and goes back to her grading.

 

* * *

 

Bellamy calls Octavia that night while he’s making dinner. After the usual catch-up small talk, he finally leads with, “So I’m bringing Clarke to your place for the holidays.”

“As a _date_?” she asks teasingly. He almost drops a pot on his foot, face going red.

“No! It- I just didn’t want to face Lincoln’s giant family alone, the wedding was enough of a nightmare, I don’t want to think about Christmas when it’d be just me.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I love you and Lincoln and his entire civilization of relatives, but you’re going to be busy entertaining them, and you know I’m not good at people.”

“You are, in fact, _terrible_  at people,” Octavia confirms thoughtfully. “How hard are you going to try to turn ‘come to my sister’s for Christmas!’ into ‘date me, beautiful art teacher I’ve had an enormous crush on for years’?” Bellamy rolls his eyes at the carrot he’s chopping up.

“I’m not going to try, because that’s weird and she obviously has some kind of issue with the holidays so I’m just going to make it a nice, pleasant experience for her.”

“Here’s to another year of pining and yearning, then,” Octavia says cheerfully.

“Whatever,” Bellamy scoffs. “See if I talk to you about my life anymore.” He drops the vegetables in the pot and turns the dial on the stove. “So how are preparations for the Woods armada going?”

Octavia groans, long and loud and exhausted. “There are _so many_  of them, Bell. Thank god you’re coming so we have an excuse to only put his parents in the other spare bedroom. Apparently most of the family members coming are the ones who _couldn’t_  make it to the wedding, so I get to learn all about two whole new branches of his family, which is- yeah. We’re doing flashcards.” She sighs. “I love Lincoln, but sometimes I debate the wisdom of choosing not to move to a remote mountaintop with him.” Bellamy laughs and he can hear Octavia huff on the other end of the line. “How big is _Clarke’s_  family?” she asks petulantly, and he pauses for a moment, blinking.

“I… don’t actually know. She doesn’t talk about them.” He shakes his head. In the background, he hears a door slam on Octavia’s end.

“We’ll pick this conversation up at a later date, big brother. Lincoln sends his love.”

“When did I ask for his love?”

“Jerk. Bye.”

“Love you, O.”

“Love you too, asshole.”

 

* * *

 

Bellamy invades Clarke’s fifth-period class the next day. It’s his planning period, and he’s been known to bring grading and sit at her desk and draw goofy comics on her post-it notes. It’s a small class, AP studio art, so the kids are mostly self-starters and she doesn’t have to do much, so she doesn’t mind the disruption and can spend a fair amount of time sitting next to him and drawing him responses to his comics on her post-its. Her art is better, obviously, but he likes to think he’s improving. It’s also no secret that a lot of their students have a small pool running on whether they’re currently sleeping together or they just want to.

That day, though, as soon as she sits down next to him, he looks up from the genuinely _awful_  paper he’s struggling through and says, “So, details on our Christmas plans.” Immediately one of the kids drops her pencil and elbows her friend, and Bellamy suppresses a grin. The kids are almost more invested in their potential relationship than he is, and he’s the one who’s probably in love with her. “My sister lives about an eight-hour drive from here, so if we leave straight from school on Friday we should get in around midnight.”

“I’d actually feel safer leaving in the morning, if it’s all the same to you. Ice on the roads and all,” she replies, ignoring the intense, hushed discussion happening between two of her students.

“No problem, but- morning means _dawn_ , Griffin.” She groans and looks pleadingly at the ceiling and he laughs, knocking his knee against hers. “I’ll drive, you can just sleep the whole way. I know how you need your beauty rest.”

“Shut up,” she says without heat. “Do I need to get a hotel?”

He shakes his head. “My sister has a spare room. Just bring the ugliest Christmas sweater you own and good holiday cheer.” His grin is wide and cheesy.

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t push it. Holiday cheer is a lot to ask.” One of her students raises her hand and Clarke stands to go help her. The two girls who’d been whispering excitedly about Bellamy and Clarke glare openly at their classmate and Bellamy shakes his head, looking back down at his papers. A minute later she sits back down next to him and says, “So what if I don’t own any Christmas sweaters?”

“I’ve got you covered,” he responds with a grin. “Our grandma could do hideous things with a pair of knitting needles and a nativity scene, god rest her soul. I’m sure one of mine will fit you.”

“You have _multiple_  ugly Christmas sweaters?” Clarke asks incredulously.

“I’m not heartless! I can’t just _throw out_  sweaters my grandma made me, that’d be like kicking a puppy or something, do you really think so low of me?” He makes a dramatically hurt expression and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m just saying, one ugly Christmas sweater is normal, more than maybe three means you have a problem.”

“Yeah, my problem is not being able to turn down gifts from my sweet old granny, is that really a flaw?” He pouts at her and she laughs, kicking at his ankle. “So Saturday morning at like six, then, yeah?”

She sighs. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Awesome,” he replies with a grin, wrapping an arm around her shoulders briefly before going back to his grading. She buries her face in her sketchbook to hide her blush. One of her students sighs happily.

 

* * *

 

At exactly six o’clock on Saturday morning, Bellamy stands outside in the crisp, bright, early December air, waiting for Clarke to answer the door. He bounces on his toes, a little bit because of the cold, and a little because he’s tired and nervous. This is new territory for their friendship, and he really doesn’t want to screw it up. He’s had second thoughts about a hundred times, wondering whether it was appropriate, whether she just said yes to be polite, whether it’s going to be weird or awkward or any of a hundred different things. But he just keeps reminding himself that it’s _Clarke_ , and that they’re friends, and she doesn’t do anything she doesn’t mean.

Finally, he hears the lock pull open, and then she’s standing there in a long, thick gray sweater-dress and black leggings, her damp hair pulled back into a neat braid, a blanket folded under one arm and a small suitcase in the other. His mouth goes dry for a second, because seriously what the fuck, how is she _still_  so hot even when she’s groggy and disheveled at dawn on a Saturday, but then he grins at her and chirps out, “Good morning!”

She grumbles incoherently in response, eyelids drooping, and turns around to lock her door. He carries her suitcase to the car and opens the car door for her, like a gentleman, and by the time he’s put her bag in the trunk and sat down in the driver’s seat, she’s already bundled up in the passenger seat, blanket up to her chin, fast asleep. He smiles to himself and starts the car, turning on the heating full-blast to banish the morning chill.

He listens to an audiobook for the first few hours, some John Grisham mystery that’s got him muttering every plot twist to himself about ten minutes before it happens and then making I-told-you-so faces at his steering wheel. Despite his general morning-person-ness, even he can’t go too long driving without a break, so when he starts yawning at about the four-hour mark, he pulls over into a gas station and refills the car, then goes inside to get coffee. When he comes back out, Clarke is blinking herself awake, yawning into her blanket and rubbing at her face.

“Morning, sunshine,” he says, cheerfully, handing her one of the cups as he resumes his place in the front seat. “I got you coffee- black, one sugar, like you like it.”

“How sweet,” she says groggily, taking the cup and sipping from it. She makes a face- she always does when she drinks coffee, and he’s still not sure why she consumes so much of it when she seems to dislike it. “How far are we?”

“About three and a half hours left,” he responds, pulling out of the lot and fiddling with the radio. “If I put on Christmas music will you go all Scrooge on me?”

She grins. “No, but I’m going to sing along, and that might put you in a hum-buggy mood.”

“Not if I’m louder,” he cracks back with a smile.

The roads are good, so they get to Octavia’s about half an hour early, and almost as soon as they pull up and get out of the car, Octavia is running out the door and throwing herself at Bellamy. He lifts her off the ground with a laugh and Clarke looks on, smiling. She looks back at the house and her jaw drops as Octavia’s husband walks out.

“Lincoln?!” she calls out, surprised and gleeful. “Oh my god!” Then she’s the one running and hugging him.

“It’s good to see you,” he says with a grin, holding her by the shoulders. “It’s been awhile, how are you?”

“Good! I’m good, I’m an art teacher now, at the same high school as Bellamy. I didn’t know you’d gotten _married_!” She shoves at his chest affectionately and he ducks his head, grinning shyly. “That’s what I get for not being on social media, huh?”

“You know each other?” Octavia asks, crunching through the snow towards them.

“Yeah,” Lincoln says, “Clarke and I were really good friends in high school, we lost contact sometime in college.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude,” Clarke says, holding out her hand to Octavia. “Clarke Griffin, I teach at the same school as Bellamy-”

“I know who you are,” Octavia responds with a grin, shaking her hand. “He talks about you all the time.” Clarke side-eyes Bellamy, grinning at the tinge of pink to his cheeks.

“Octavia,” he says, warning.

“Grab your bags, let’s go inside, it’s freezing!” Octavia says cheerfully, linking her arm through Clarke’s and dragging her into the house.

 

* * *

 

Bellamy and Octavia _always_  trim the tree together, it’s one of the best parts of Christmas. They make hot chocolate- from milk, not water like they usually do- and sit around throwing tinsel at each other and somehow managing to get some on the tree. Their efforts usually look like shit, but with the help of artists Lincoln and Clarke, they have high hopes for the aesthetic value of this year’s tree.

It’s uncanny to Bellamy how quickly his sister and Clarke bond, but- at the same time, it makes sense. They’re his two favorite people in the world, it follows that they would like each other too, but it still fills him with something bright and giddy to see Clarke fitting into every part of his life so seamlessly, like she was always there, a piece that was never missing but belonged with the rest of it all the same.

Clarke and Lincoln quickly get frustrated with the Blake siblings’ ineffective attempts at tree decoration and constantly having to swat their hands away from the meticulously placed tinsel, so they banish them to the couch, where Bellamy and Octavia collapse next to each other, laughing and sipping their cocoa and talking quietly underneath whatever snow-and-cheer Bing Crosby tune is playing.

“We really made it, didn’t we?” Octavia says, resting her head on her brother’s shoulder. “Did you ever think we’d get this, when we were kids?”

“The first ten or twelve Christmases didn’t exactly lend themselves to high hopes, no.” She elbows him and he grins. “But I’m glad. I think I appreciate it more for all the shitty years we had.”

“Remember the second year after Mom died, when we got our first real tree?”

“It was plastic.”

“I was fourteen and I’d never left the city, I didn’t know what a real fir tree looked like! Besides, Grandma said it was real, and I was _not_ suicidal enough to try and contradict her.” Bellamy laughs, and Clarke turns to look at him. He waves and she smiles back before going back to arranging the lights just so.

The doorbell rings as Clarke and Lincoln are putting the last of the ornaments on, and Octavia gets up to go get it, and Lincoln follows her when he hears her greet his parents. Clarke stands back to survey their work and Bellamy goes to stand beside her.

“Not too shabby,” he says, nodding his approval. She beams up at him and his stomach flips. “Still hate Christmas?” he asks wryly, congratulating himself privately on his ability to get the words out of his suddenly dry mouth.

“It’s growing on me,” she replies with a shrug, and leaves him standing in the living room staring at the beautiful tree grinning to himself.

 

* * *

 

Bellamy’s good with kids. He’s always been good with kids, it’s part of the reason he became a teacher- he’s just authoritative enough that they respect him, and just cool enough that they like him. So it’s no surprise when he ends up in the backyard a few hours later playing soccer with a small army of Lincoln’s nieces and nephews while the adults sit in the kitchen chatting and sipping at hot coffee.

Clarke wanders out after about an hour of adult company and Bellamy bows out of the game and walks over to stand next to her. He grins, his face bright and flushed with cold and exertion, and she wants to die a little bit from the way her heart flutters at the sight.

“Come to hang out with the coolest people at this shindig, Griffin?”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re a dork. Do you know how many of Lincoln’s assorted aunties have asked if we’re together?”

“Probably a lot, they seem like the type. Sorry about that,” he replies with a grimace.

“Uncle Bellamy!” shouts one of the kids gleefully, and when he turns around to respond he sees one of Lincoln’s million nephews pointing above his and Clarke’s heads and grinning. Bellamy looks up and sees a sprig of mistletoe, and he can’t decide how to react, but Clarke beats him to it by kissing him on the cheek while he isn’t looking. He’s glad, suddenly, that he was already red-faced, because he can feel basically his entire existence blushing right then.

Octavia comes bursting out onto the porch just then and rushes up to them. “You guys-” she starts, then sees Bellamy’s face, looks up, and scowls briefly at the mistletoe. She kisses both of them once on the cheek before continuing, “Anyway, so I’m going to spare you guys the long drama-”

“What if we want to hear the long drama?” Bellamy interrupts, mostly to rile her up. She smacks him on the arm and shushes him.

“Long story short, Lincoln’s cousin from the next town over needs someplace to stay with her kid for a while, we told her she could have our spare room. Bell, we can get you a sleeping bag or something from storage, I’m sorry but you’re going to have to take the floor somewhere in the house, we’ll put them on the pull-out couch, Clarke keeps the spare room cause she’s the guest-”

“What? We can share the spare room,” Clarke protests, “Bellamy shouldn’t have to sleep on the _floor_.”

Octavia’s mouth opens and closes for a moment before she manages, “I mean, if you’re sure?”

Clarke shrugs amiably. “We’re friends and we’re adults. He’s seen me in some pretty embarrassing states.”

Bellamy, for his part, looks vaguely panicked.

“I’m really sorry about this, Clarke, this is not the first impression I wanted you to have of me.” Octavia looks genuinely apologetic and a little embarrassed, and Clarke feels bad for it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Clarke says with a dismissive wave. “Again, I spent a lot of time with Lincoln’s family, I’m used to the surprise guest deal.”

Octavia smiles, relieved, and hugs her. Clarke looks surprised for a second, but relaxes into it and hugs her back. “One more favor, Bell,” Octavia says when she pulls away. “We weren’t expecting her so we don’t have a gift for her or her daughter, here’s what we need, if you can go get them you’ll be my hero forever and ever.” She holds out a post-it note with her neat, blocky print on it.

“I’m already your hero forever and ever,” he responds, taking the note, and she kisses him on the cheek and rushes back into the house. He frowns at the writing and holds it out to Clarke. “Do you know what this is? I don’t know any of those words.”

“Oh! Yeah, that’s a certain type of paintbrush, it’s like… it’s too hard to explain, I should just go with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, believe it or not I don’t mind spending time with my friend.” She knocks her shoulder into his companionably and he grins and slings an arm over her, and he can’t decide if he’s imagining the way she settles into his side.

They drive about fifteen minutes to an art store to get the paintbrush for the daughter, and it’s unsurprisingly packed. Clarke sees Bellamy, ever the misanthrope, blanch immediately upon walking into the store and seeing the crowds, so she takes him by the hand without thinking and drags him through the press of people to the paintbrush aisle. She looks down at the note, then grimaces up at the shelf just out of her reach.

“Which one?” he asks, and grabs the ones she points at. They make their way to the front of the store, and neither of them realize they’re still holding hands until they’re out at the car and they have to let go to go to their different seats. They pull apart with an awkward blush and don’t look at each other the whole drive to the mall to get the gift for Lincoln’s cousin.

If the art store was bad, the mall three days before Christmas is a million times worse. The two of them barely make it to Sears in one piece, and they’re practically crying with relief when they find the weird juicer Octavia sent them for. It’s the last one on the shelf, and as Clarke reaches out to grab it, she’s shoved to the ground, and the woman sneers triumphantly at her as she snatches the juicer and turns to stalk off with it.

Clarke is on her feet in an instant, grabbing the woman by the shoulder and snarling, “What the fuck?!” She pulls back her arm for a punch and Bellamy lunges forward and grabs her around the bicep.

“Clarke, no, please don’t get us kicked out of Sears-”

She yanks her arm out of Bellamy’s grip and grabs for the juicer. The woman yanks it back and starts running. Clarke goes to chase her, but Bellamy catches her around the waist and holds her back. “Clarke, think about this, don’t do anything you’re going to regret.”

“Let me go! I’m gonna get that-” Clarke lets loose a string of obscenities that makes Bellamy blush and he almost lets her go out of surprise.

“Sir?” Clarke and Bellamy freeze and turn around to see mall security, looking pissed. “I’m going to have to ask you and your… angry girlfriend to leave.”

“Mhm, yep, already gone.” Bellamy keeps one arm around Clarke’s waist as he tugs her out of the store and out to the car. She doesn’t stop glowering the whole way.

“You should’ve let me sock that bitch,” Clarke says when they’re on the road to the mall in the next town over, a forty-five minute drive.

“She definitely would’ve pressed charges, it’s not worth it,” Bellamy replies, cracking a smile. “But I definitely had your back. In spirit.”

Clarke snorts. “Thanks, you’re the last person I’ll call for backup in a fight now.”

He huffs, offended. “Listen, these fists of fury can-”

“ _Fists of fury_? What are you, twelve?” she laughs.

When they get to the next mall and find a parking spot, he looks at her warily and says, “Do you need to stay in the car or can you come into the store without getting into a fistfight?”

She rolls her eyes at him and climbs out of the car. “Let’s just get the damn juicer.”

Fortunately, their second trip goes off without a hitch, and  when they get back to Octavia’s house she greets them with a frazzled, “What _took_  you so long?"

“Clarke got in a fight and got us kicked out of Sears so we had to leave town to go to another mall,” Bellamy replies casually, as if juicer-based fistfights are an everyday occurrence.

There’s a long silence and then Octavia says, “You’re shitting me. Jesus. I don’t even think I want to know.” She takes the plastic bags bearing gifts from them and disappears down the hall for a moment, then pokes her head back into the entryway and says, “By the way, look up.”

Bellamy and Clarke glance up at the same time to see mistletoe, and this time it’s Bellamy who ducks down and kisses Clarke on the cheek, like it’s nothing, and heads to the closet to hang up his coat.

 

* * *

 

They both put a little too much spike in their eggnog that night, in anticipation of having to share a bed. It feels ridiculous, and Clarke keeps reminding herself that she slept over at Wells’ house a ton when she was a kid, sharing a bed with a friend should be nothing, and the fact that he’s a guy is irrelevant since she’s bisexual anyway- but, then, she didn’t have an embarrassing crush on Wells, and she mostly slept on the floor. And then she’s flashing back to middle school and how weird it was to share a bed with the friend who made her realize she was bi when her crush became too evident to ignore, and she realizes that, yeah, offering to share her bed with Bellamy probably wasn’t the best decision. But he’s such a grumpy old man, he’d probably throw out his back if he had to sleep on the floor, she can’t let that happen. Clarke Griffin’s no quitter, she won’t go back on her word.

(Bellamy’s anxious train of thought consists more of ‘god please don’t let me get a boner while sleeping next to Clarke.’ He’s also worried about general emotional weirdness, but _physical_  weirdness is, to him, a lot more pressing.)

Finally everyone starts turning in for the night, and eventually Clarke wanders upstairs to the spare room. A little later, Bellamy moves to follow her, but Octavia catches him by the arm with a mischievous grin.

“Make sure you guys keep it quiet tonight, Lincoln’s parents are right next door.”

“Shut up, O,” he mutters, rolling his eyes and trying not to blush like a teenager.

She laughs and kisses him on the cheek. “Night, big brother.”

Clarke is in the bathroom when he gets upstairs, so he takes advantage of the empty guest room to change clothes. He’s digging through his suitcase for a shirt when Clarke walks back in and freezes in the doorway as her eyes land on his bare back. He can’t not look at her either- he was worried she’d be the kind of girl who slept in tiny shorts and a tank top or something, which would have been a disaster because her legs are _phenomenal_  and he can’t deal with that, but the oversized flannel pants and gigantic Carolina Hurricanes t-shirt is just as bad. He was prepared for sexy, but she’s _cute_ , he wants to _cuddle_  with her, and that’s somehow a million times worse. Sexual attraction is one thing, but he’s never really figured out how to cope with honest-to-god, warm and fuzzy, butterflies-in-the-stomach _feelings_.

After a moment, she drags her gaze away from him, cheeks pink, and he finds the ratty sleep shirt he brought, and then they’re at a weird standstill again, one of them on each side of the bed, looking at it like it might bite them. Finally Clarke shakes her head, scoffs, and throws back the sheets. They’re both adults. This isn’t a big deal.

For a while after Bellamy switches off his lamp they both just lay there in the dark, tossing and turning and neither of them able to sleep. Clarke rolls onto her side, facing him, and whispers, “So you know the one cousin who looks like he has a dead rat on his head?”

Bellamy rolls over and grins at her. “I’d describe it more as… sleeping pigeon chic.”

The awkwardness dissolves as they whisper back and forth in the dark like teenagers at a sleepover, chatting and teasing. Bellamy’s eyes are starting to droop when she says it, and it’s so quiet he almost doesn’t hear.

“Thanks for bringing me along, Bellamy. This is… really nice.”

He just smiles into the darkness and drifts off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Bellamy wakes up to Clarke pressed up against his side, her arm flung across his chest, her hair in his mouth. He’s practically at the edge of the bed and she’s sprawled across about two-thirds of it. He extracts himself carefully from her, and she makes whining, sleepy noises of protest, reaching after him. He thinks he might die. She rolls over and presses her face into the pillow and passes out again, though, and the feeling mostly passes.

He’s in the kitchen before anyone else, which isn’t unusual for him, since he’s a natural early riser, so he decides to go ahead and start breakfast. He makes an experimental batch of Christmas Pancakes, some peppermint and some gingerbread, with O’s flavored coffee creamers, and starts a pot of coffee. Gradually, as the smell of breakfast filters through the house, other people start waking up and wandering into the kitchen. Clarke comes down after about half an hour looking groggy and disheveled, and when she slots herself in next to Bellamy to fix a cup of coffee, he’s almost overwhelmed with the urge to kiss her on the cheek and say good morning. Domesticity is not doing anything to help his crush.

She beats him to it, though, by leaning her head on his shoulder as she sips at the coffee, and asking, “So can you make those into cool shapes or are you not that talented at pancakes?”

“I can do _anything_ ,” he shoots back, “I’m incredibly talented.”

“Cool, make me the gingerbread Mona Lisa.”

“Lower your standards.”

“Peppermint Neuschwanstein?”

“Lower.”

“A puppy.”

“That I can do.”

Octavia is the next to come in, looking put-together despite the early hour, because she’s a morning person like Bellamy. Clarke looks a little incredulous, because she’s not really functional until two-digit hours and a _lot_  of coffee.

“Morning Bell, morning Clarke,” Octavia chirps. “Look up.”

The two of them glance up at the same time to see yet another sprig of mistletoe. They both shoot Octavia a look and she just smiles in return. When they go in for the cheek-kiss, however, they both go in at the same time, and Bellamy’s lips end up landing on the corner of Clarke’s mouth, and they both jerk back in surprise, blushing furiously.

Octavia mutters something under her breath about ‘goddamn preteens in here.’

Clarke makes a mumbled excuse about the shower and hurries out of the room, coffee still in hand, leaving the Blakes alone.

“Is all the mistletoe really necessary, O?” Bellamy says with a scowl, stacking three pancakes onto a plate and handing it to his sister.

“Well _someone_  has to make a move on Clarke, so I’m doing it on your behalf. You’re welcome.” She pours a spare amount of syrup on them and cuts in primly, humming happily at the taste. “These are magical, Bell.”

“Thank you. And I don’t need your help, okay? I’ll make a move when I decide I want to. This isn’t about me and Clarke getting together. I like her a lot, and I’m ecstatic to have her as a friend, got it? I don’t want to lose that, I just want to make sure she has a good Christmas. Please stop making it weird.”

“Yeah but-”

“O,” he says, warning. She sighs petulantly and goes back to her pancakes.

Clarke, who’d returned to the kitchen with the intention of putting back her coffee mug, stands frozen just outside the door. She walked up in time to hear ‘I like her a lot as a friend,’ and she feels crushed, intensely, in a way she doesn’t think she has any right to be as an adult. She turns around and goes back to her room, trying not to feel pathetic and mostly failing.

When she comes out of the shower, she’s put herself back together enough that it doesn’t feel like a punch in the gut to see Bellamy standing at the stove flipping pancakes and cheerfully humming ‘Let it Snow.’ It still hurts of course, because it always hurts to hear that the person who gives you butterflies only thinks of you as a friend. She’s not a dick, though, so she tries to push it away, because she is glad to have him as a friend, he’s a great guy and an awesome friend, the kind of person who doesn’t think twice about going out of his way to look after his friends and treats caring about people like an Olympic sport. He’s the kind of friend everyone should have, and she knows she’d be stupid to lose that, so she just takes all the disappointment and crushed hopes and shoves them away somewhere dark in her heart and locks the door.

The way he grins at her when he notices her, bright and crooked like he’s absolutely thrilled she’s there, doesn’t help at all.

“So what’s on the agenda today?” she asks, leaning up against the counter and watching him carefully pour and prod the batter into a shape vaguely resembling a puppy. It’s misshappen and odd-looking, but he’s trying _so hard_  and it’s even more endearing for it.

“Well, it’s Christmas eve, so there’s definitely going to be some sort of present-opening tonight, and I’ve heard a truly terrifying rumor that Lincoln’s family likes to go caroling.”

Clarke nods sagely. “They do. I got dragged into it once. Took about four songs for them to realize I can’t sing and then I just smiled a lot and got free hot cocoa so it worked out, but I wouldn’t do it again.”

“So what I’m hearing is you, me, alcohol, and those awful Hallmark Christmas movies?” Bellamy frowns at the pancake as if his disapproval will do more to poke it into shape than his pancake-making skills.

“You heard exactly right, my friend.” She holds out a plate and he drops two normal pancakes and the lumpy almost-puppy onto it. He makes a face when she absolutely drenches it in syrup and she just sticks her tongue out at him.

The rest of Lincoln’s family trickle in slowly, beginning to arrive as Clarke is helping Bellamy clean up the detritus from breakfast, bickering good-naturedly and flicking soapy water at each other from the sink. When Octavia wanders into the kitchen she rolls her eyes at them and says, “Ugh, you’re so married. Anyway, a bunch of us were gonna go to the park and have a snowman contest, want to come? Clarke, you’re required, as a real professional artist you have to be the judge.”

Bellamy gets roped into helping three of the youngest cousins roll a passable snowman, and his snow-sculpting skills are considerably better than his pancake-forming ones. Clarke watches him goofing around with the kids while she idly molds some snow into a reindeer shape about as high as her knee. It’s a really heartwarming scene- all wide smiles and flushed faces and five-year-olds jumping on Bellamy for attention.

“It’s cute, right?” Octavia says. Clarke jumps slightly, having been too distracted to hear her approach, but smiles and hums in agreement. “We always thought he’d settle down first, he’s such a family guy, you know? But at the same time it kind of makes sense he hasn’t. He’s got so much love to give but it’s really hard to get there, he’s so guarded. Trust issues are the Blake family disease.” Clarke doesn’t say anything, unsure what response Octavia wants. She shakes her head at her brother and looks at Clarke with a soft smile. “He really cares about you, you know?”

Clarke blinks. “I mean, he’s just a really caring person in general. I’m not… I’m nothing special.”

“No, you are,” Octavia insists. “You should’ve heard him when he told me he was bringing you, he was so _earnest_. He was like, ‘O, she has to have the best Christmas _ever_ , okay?’ It was cute.” She looks at the ground, pushing the toe of her boot into the snow, then turns back to Clarke, looking serious. “What I’m getting at is, be careful with him, okay? He really likes you- hell, _I_  really like you- and just… be gentle with him. He seems tough but he’s really soft on the inside.”

“Yeah,” Clarke says, brushing some snow off of the back of her reindeer. “I know.”

“Good.” Octavia brightens, the serious mood gone. “Anyway, Lincoln tells me you’re not much of a caroler.”

By the time everyone sets out for caroling that evening, it’s clear that there’s a mistletoe-based conspiracy involving Bellamy and Clarke. Even the kids are in on it. It seems like the stuff appears out of _nowhere_ , because whenever they end up next to each other someone points at the ceiling or says ‘look up’ and, sure enough, fucking mistletoe. They get less awkward about it as the day goes on, but it never stops making Clarke’s heart stutter, especially the time Bellamy sweeps her into a dramatic dip, wiggles his eyebrows, and then pecks her chastely on the cheek before setting her back on her feet.

The carolers leave almost as soon as it’s dark and Bellamy pours some heavily spiked egg nog for himself and Clarke before collapsing onto the sofa in front of the Hallmark Channel. As far as they can gather, they’re in the middle of a movie about a doomed ski lodge that the adult daughter of the owner is trying to save in time for Christmas, also there’s like four different romantic side plots happening, and there’s three male characters who look eerily similar so it’s impossible to tell them apart.

“Wait, hold up,” Clarke says, about ten minutes from the end. “Why is she kissing her brother?”

“That one’s not her brother, it’s the other one, this one is the mysterious stranger.”

“No I’m pretty sure that’s her brother,” Clarke insists.

Bellamy snorts. “Incest- the Hallmark channel specialty.”

“So I overheard you talking to Octavia this morning,” Clarke says, blurting it out without thinking, immediately regretting it and wanting to pull the words back into her mouth as Bellamy blanches and starts to reply. “I am having a good Christmas,” she says, cutting him off before he can say anything. “It’s… Christmas was always my dad’s favorite holiday. He was like you- unhealthy amount of reindeer sweaters, presents for everyone, weirdly specific tree-trimming traditions. Christmas was his _art_.” She looks down at her mostly-empty cup of eggnog, probably the third or so of the night, then downs the last of it. “I flew home for the holidays my first year of college, he was supposed to pick me up from the airport. The roads were icy and he lost control of the car. Died on impact.” Blinking away the tears that always seem to come with this story, she smiles bitterly. “Ho ho ho, I killed my father the week before Christmas.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy says, and his voice is heartbreakingly tender, and earnest, and she hates herself a little bit for wanting to cry on his shoulder over something that happened years ago.

“It hasn’t really been the same since,” she continues, interrupting him. “I didn’t really know how to do Christmas without him, you know? But this was… this is nice. It’s a lot of the same stuff, but it’s different. You and Octavia are… I don’t know, you guys are just what a real family should be like. I can’t even look my mom in the eyes anymore, hardly.”

Bellamy reaches over silently, taking Clarke’s empty mug from her hands and putting it on the side table. He wraps his arms around her carefully, questioningly, his hold tightening only when she sighs softly and leans into him.

“We didn’t have holidays as kids,” he says. “That’s why O’s so into it now. Our mom was… well, she wasn’t focused on giving us an ideal childhood. When I was, god, probably eleven or twelve, she started asking why we didn’t have a tree or presents or anything when all her friends did. I made one out of cardboard, it was awful, just a bunch of lumpy triangles, and I took those ceramic ornaments we made in art class and I stapled them onto it. Duct-taped a couple of socks to the oven, because we didn’t have a fireplace or mantel. It was pathetic, honestly,” he says, but he’s smiling, and Clarke is too.

“No, that’s cute. You’re a good brother. I bet she was delighted.”

He laughs. “She wasn’t impressed, but she took it. Our grandparents were Filipino, so when they took us in, Christmas was about going to church in the middle of the night and getting whacked on the wrist if you fell asleep. They got the hang of it after a couple of years, the materialism and everything, but O really started going all-out after she moved out, ridiculous parties, gigantic trees, absolutely extravagant. She loves it. I know it seems like she’s stressed out right now, but trust me, Christmastime and a house full of people? She’s over the moon.”

“Well, with Lincoln’s family, she’s probably going to have a house full of people every bank and national holiday for the rest of her life.” Bellamy has to laugh at that, as well. The movie’s changed, _Miracle on 34th Street_ , and Clarke rests her head on Bellamy’s chest with a contented sigh. “Thank you for this,” she says quietly.

“Of course,” he responds, resting his chin on top of her head. “Merry Christmas, Clarke.”

She doesn’t say anything, and her deep, even breaths and closed eyes tell him she’s asleep, so he switches off the TV, scoops her up gently in his arms, and carries her back to their room.

In the hallway, she wakes up and her face takes on a sunny smile as she looks up and says, “Bellamy, stop.” He raises an eyebrow at her, and she points to the ceiling. “Mistletoe.”

Caught in the moment, taken in by her mussed hair and bright smile and the soft, loving warmth of a dark house on Christmas eve, he leans down and kisses her full on the mouth. She responds instantly, weaving her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, her other arm tight over his shoulders.

When they break apart, she looks up at him with heat in her eyes, and something more, and her face is flushed and her lips are kiss-red and her pupils are blown so wide he can hardly see the blue, and, yeah, he’s probably in love with her, but he’s not going to say that now. It can wait. Now is for carrying her the rest of the way to their room and kicking the door shut behind him and marveling at the way she looks underneath him, lust and fondness and exhilaration all at once. He kisses her again, and she tastes like eggnog and bourbon and peppermint and happiness, and she runs a hand under his shirt, presses her hand into the skin of his back, the other caressing his cheek, and to him it feels like a Christmas miracle.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://thejgatsbykid.tumblr.com)!


End file.
